Guest Speaker - Erik Dellenback

Thanks for checking out the Anchor Faith Message podcast

from St. Augustine, FL.

Now enjoy this message. For the past 4 1/2 years, I have

had the honor and privilege to serve our state as the

Governor's liaison for faith and community.

That's amazing. I have.

To tell you there's two things I really always hope that people.

Hear when I hear say that title one, I would love for you to

know I think it's the best job in the state.

There's 110,000 state employees. I think governor's liaison for

faith and community is the best. But here's what's more important

is that you should be, as Floridians, extremely proud that

that position even exists in the state of Florida.

Not, not that I'm in it because that's irrelevant, but the fact

that there's only 14 or 15 states in the whole country that

have put an emphasis on faith and community.

So it's a It's a big deal. It's a big deal.

So what is my role? Well, my role is to be the

governor's voice from the executive office of the

governor. By the way, we're the only one.

Arkansas is about to change that, but we have been the only

one that has that role embedded in the executive office of the

governor. Arkansas is about.

To join us and and what that means is that I get to be his

voice to the 20,000 faith institutions in Florida 20,020

thousand. There's 105,000 nonprofits and

we get to be his voice to them. But more importantly, and this

is super important, is that I have been invited into a table

of his senior leadership that we get to be your voice to him,

which is, which is super important because as you know,

you know, one of the things I, I find it difficult to stand on a

stage like this and not at least touch on this thing that's

talked about all the time is what is the separation of church

and state. So we're just going to dive in

for one second because I want to really preach a message.

So we're going to get this out of the way and say The thing is,

is that what Thomas Jefferson meant when he wrote a letter

about the separation of church and state is imperative.

It means that government is not to ever form a national church.

And it means that government is not supposed to interfere with

the work of the church. That's great.

That's great. But the misinterpretation of

that has led to a separation between faith and government

that is not healthy. And ultimately who loses in that

process is our most vulnerable populations.

And so we're going to, we're going to break some of that down

today. Let me see as I go through these

little pieces of my journey and probably because my voice, I'm

going to need as much affirmation as possible.

So I didn't know till we start doing worship that was not going

to be a problem in this church. And so I'm grateful for you, but

let's just walk through because I got a few things that I'm

going to stop at and I'm going to say.

How many of you know that? So let's just start.

With an easy one. How many of you know that having

Jesus as savior is a lot easier than Jesus as Lord?

So as I as I start my testimony, I need you to know I I I knew

Jesus early as savior. Why would I not?

He's the only way. It's an eternal path.

It's a destination to heaven. Like why would I not Lord?

So my life started in Boca Raton FL Boca Raton FL whatever.

You know it as one thing it does is it created in me a real heart

to think that the world was about power and money.

And so as I went into the University of Florida, as I came

out of the University of Florida, my path was a pursuit

of those two things. And and again, the Lord was in

tow because I appreciated my salvation.

But there was no reins handed over.

There was no leadership from the Lord at that point in time.

And so I just would say to you, how much easier is it to pursue

the things of the world than the things of the Lord.

It's just easier. I tell people all the time,

Christianity is not easy. It's worth it.

It's not easy. And so as I as I came out of

school, I got into the college bowl business.

And so I won't spend too much time here, but I spent 12 years

working up at the Gator Bowl. Actually was blessed.

When I was 26, they put me in charge of starting the ACC

Football Championship. And that was awesome, except I

was a Gator and don't like the ACC.

So it was less awesome and so, but that's God's sense of humor.

You know, he does things like that.

But I had this opportunity to do that.

And then a few years later, my wife introduced A sermon to me.

It was done by Francis Chan. It was called lukewarm and

loving it. And as I watched that sermon, I

realized that my life in the college bowl business, in the

pursuit of money, as Jesus, as savior but not Lord, was a life

of being lukewarm. And so I have to tell you, there

was a major intersection in my life right then, right there.

That day I took a couple days off work.

I started to pray about that. I said, Lord, I'm, I'm out of

whack. I'm out of alignment.

And three days later I went back to work and my boss said, hey,

let's take a drive. And my boss offered me to be his

heir apparent to take over football in Northeast Florida.

Which which was awesome, except for it made me forget everything

I've been thinking for three days because I'm not that

strong. And so all of a sudden I had

this opportunity with more power and more money and I had

forgotten what was the point again.

Now here's the problem. The Holy Spirit will never stop

being a nag in the nicest way possible.

Like. And so all of a sudden, I'm, I'm

like, OK, I I just need to quiet this voice.

And you start to realize, and I know there's many of you in this

room that have realized that the thing that you thought was the

thing of life is not the thing. And when you realize that thing

is not the thing, you're in a real problem because you've got

to figure out what is the thing. And so as as I'm going through

this time, I start to realize, I better figure out a way that my

vocation and my life better start looking a lot more like

Jesus as Lord instead of Jesus as savior only.

And so this led to this career conundrum.

Which many of you have probably faced.

Yes, during that time I had met a little football player.

Not little, he's not little, but a football player named Tim

Tebow. And so yeah, yeah, he's.

I guarantee there's a few fans in the room.

Tim was graduating from school and asked if I'd come start his

foundation. And the truth is, how many times

do we, you know, Paul says it so beautifully, but how many times

do we know what we want to do? But we can't seem to do it.

And what we don't want to do, we seem to be able to do very

easily. And so even knowing that I knew

this thing wasn't the thing and this could be the thing, the tug

of war was still real. I never want to glaze over that

because I think, like, sometimes we act as Christians, like it's

just easy and it just happens and it didn't happen like that.

And so, Long story short, I turned Tim down for four months.

The part of the store. I want you to hear and that is

that one day in the middle of the night, I had a true

intersection with the Lord where he's like, what is it?

Which is it going to be? And I woke up that morning, I

sat with my family all but the one that's here.

I mean, they were all together and we said, hey, are we.

No, that's not true. Two of them weren't born.

I should take that back. I'm looking.

There's so many kids there. Some of them have.

Some of them have to be yours. I there's kids.

So. And so we we, we prayed and we

came out and said we're going to, we're going to do that.

And when we said we're going to do that, I called the guys that

were running it and Tim and I said.

Hey, I think we're going to take the role.

And it's that's great because. We're going to up the salary and

allow you to pick what city it's in.

How many of you know that there are things that God is

withholding till you're obedient?

I'm not. I have to tell you, that was the

first time I learned that. First time I learned that, which

is there's times when God's got it.

He's got the great thing right around the corner from you.

But until you take the step of obedience, he's not going to

give it to you. And so that was a major moment

in my life. I started running Tim's

foundation. For the next 8 years I would run

the Tim Tebow Foundation started in our guest room.

We built a lot of different things.

I want to be very real with you in the middle of that, that as I

started to run it, everything felt of the Lord.

It was the first time I was experiencing spiritual warfare.

I wore that as a badge because in the bulb business there's not

a lot of spiritual warfare. I don't think the devil cares

that we do college football and so and so all of a sudden I'm

experiencing that except we're doing great things guys.

We're we're we built a we built a Children's Hospital in the

Philippines. I'm running multiple orphanages.

We're doing wish granting. And in the midst of that and

it's OK. I she, I have permission.

In the midst of that my wife looks at me one day and says,

hey, I think we should talk about a divorce.

Now why is that? Because I had made my calling my

vocation more than her, more than them.

I had changed it. So I I need you to know and I

have to share that part of the story.

Not because it's the fun part of the story.

It has been redeemed. She's here.

We have a better marriage than we've ever had in our life.

Yeah, that's the praise God. But I don't.

Ever. I don't.

I don't love when people go into something and they forget that

they're heading into a battle, so they don't put their armor

on. Just because you're serving the

Lord doesn't mean the battle's not fully real, right?

And I I went into that role of thinking, these decisions aren't

hard. Who has to?

Who has to pray about opening orphanages and building

hospitals? And she should.

She should love me because the press releases say that I'm

awesome, right? Doesn't work that way.

It doesn't work that way. And so I I share that to say

that that was the the next thing I learned.

The other thing I was learning during that time was this idea

that I was in Haiti. And a woman walks up to me and

she puts her finger in my chest and she says, I want you to know

you'll never Unsee what you've seen.

And I remember thinking, oh boy, she's right.

And I got to tell you, that became an anthem of my life.

So many moments. We see something that God will

never let us Unsee that is not on accident.

If I were to tell you that I was hoping that something would come

out of today's time from me to you would be something that you

see that you can't Unsee. I think it's so powerful because

then God and the Holy Spirit take over.

It's not my problem anymore. It's his.

And so I did that for eight years with Tim.

During that time, we built something called Night to Shine.

It's a prom for people with special needs.

It's become. When I left.

So I left him in 2017, We had 500 locations in 18 countries

and 50 states, and I think now it's like 30 something

countries. It's happening this Friday

night. And I'll tell you what I learned

in That was where my calling was.

My calling is seeing the Capital C Church set down their

denominations and banners long enough to realize the power of

the Capital C Church. And guys, it's not easy.

I'm going to tell you it's not easy.

Sometimes just because we look different, but sometimes just

because there's all the sins of the world coming to church, just

like they do into normal business.

Someone asked me one time, they said, how hard is it working in

government? And I said, well, I don't know

that it's any more political than the church, which is just I

was being snarky. But at the same point in time,

there's challenges that happen. You may know that.

So I want to share with you that I'm starting to learn these

pieces. I I leave Tim and I left him

ultimately. If you guys are wondering why

would you ever leave, well, one because I had to go home and be

a husband and a father. That year that I left him, I

flew a 200,000 miles just on Delta.

That meaning that I flew on many other airlines, but we didn't

measure those because that would be too much.

And so it was time to go home. And I went home and I did

nothing other than start to invest in my family and invest

in my marriage. We did that through a motorhome,

which is if you really wanna see how your family dynamics work,

get in 100 square feet and hit the road.

It was healing for us, ironically.

I don't know how. I can't really, on paper that

doesn't make any sense. But it was load a bunch of kids

in and and during that time I did nothing other than be

obedient with what I thought God had in front of me, which was to

be a husband and a father and let that try to become my

identity. Because how many of you know

that our identities are wrapped up in our jobs.

And if our identity is wrapped up in our job or the thing we

volunteer, the thing we do, it's going to be a fall.

And it was for me. And so I had to learn.

Can my identity as husband and father be enough?

And I'm going to talk about that more in a minute.

That's why I leave you there on that.

A year later to the month. I got a call from a guy named

Chris Tomlin. Chris is a worship singer.

And Chris said, hey, would you come start my foundation?

I said, man, I don't know. I'm kind of kind of in a mental

space right now of just trying to figure out who I am and pour

into my family. And he's like, well, would you

consult? And I said what do you want to

do? He says, I want to, I want to

change foster care and adoption in our country.

Chris has a real heart for the fact that every Christian

concert, if you've been to one in the last 20 years, stops

somewhere in the middle of the concert and usually talks about

World Vision, compassion, food for the hungry, and there's one

other. And he said, man, I think that's

great and that certainly is part of the metrics of the Christian

counselors these days. But it's killing me that we

don't talk about the kids that are right outside that arena.

And so Chris starts this foundation called Angel Armies.

I've become his consultant to that.

And a couple months later, my buddy calls and.

Says Hey Eric, I just was. I was just asked to be the

secretary of the Department of Children and Families.

Now to tell you how much I know about government, I'm like, like

what is the secretary of department Sharing Families.

He's like, well, we I, I'm going to be the head of department

sharing families. I'm like, OK, well, what's that

dude? He's like, he goes, I don't

know. He's like I, he said.

I I know it has to do with foster care, adoption and the

opioid crisis, which is so funny.

Because that's this. Big in what it's about.

But anyways, that's what he knew and that's what that was enough

for him to obediently say yes. And he says, hey, the governor

just said that he wants faith to become a priority in our state

and he's looking for somebody to come over and kind of speak.

Faith, because you might need to know that it's a bilingual

nature. Between government and faith.

There's two different languages happening, not necessarily in a

bad way. It's just to be almost like a

slang language and a regular language.

So as an example of that, you don't use the word orphan in the

States. That's like a very, very taboo

word. We would never say that.

But here on this pulpit, I promise orphan said a lot,

right? And so sometimes just

understanding foster care is orphan.

It just little translations, little silly things like that.

And so they said, would you come over and do it?

I said sure, I'll come over and do it.

And what the question I asked immediately is, are they serious

about it. I mean I just want you to know

and and and honestly because here's what I wasn't going to

do. I wasn't going to be the Tebow

Tomlin guy that all of a sudden was held up at the state and

said, hey, look, we care about faith and we don't.

And so the early days now I do think God gave us a weird gift.

And I don't know that this word and gift come together very

often. But we went into COVID almost

immediately and and the fact that we went into COVID

immediately made a bunch of faith leaders.

And really, really, I mean right now made a bunch of faith

leaders vulnerable, made a bunch of faith, made a governor

vulnerable, transparent. Like all of a sudden things

started to change. The communication levels started

to change. Obviously I'm super proud of

where our state went as far as keeping churches open.

That yeah, that. That.

You talk about changing and having denomination.

I mean political lines drop instantly.

When that happened, every church across the state was willing to

talk and and see how things were going, figure out how we were

going to lead together. And so as I share that one of

the major questions I had was will the local church be the

answer? Because the local church is the

answer. I just was curious.

I was just curious if government knew that the truth is, and

again, I will make this zero political, if you know me, I'm,

I'm zero political. But I needed to know that our

leaders felt that way, and they did.

And so the objectives I was given in the early days were to

thank and build relationships so that we could then show people

things they could not Unsee, so that then they could absolutely

make a difference in their state.

What I what? I want to share with you.

Next is. I've got a.

Bible verse, this thing. I'm going to tell you something.

Everything. Everything in my world right now

seems to be messing around a little bit.

There we go. My notes got moved.

My voice is gone. It's going to be a good one.

Would you mind putting up there first Samuel 16 Guys, I'm going

to share 2 verses, 2, two different verses, two different

chapters with you today from two different books.

And my, my, my hope for you would be that in reading these

in particular as we focus on one or two individual parts, that

you find a different level of freedom, freedom that I have

really been focusing on in my own life and so.

Let's read this together. The Lord said to Samuel, How

long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from

being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go.

I will send you to Jesse the Bethemite, and for I have

provided for myself a king among his sons.

And Samuel said, How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill

me. And the Lord said, Take a heifer

with you, and say, I have come to sacrifice to the Lord, and

invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you

shall do. And you shall anoint from me

whom I declare to you. I just want to focus real quick

on just before we move on from that I will show you what you

shall do. How many of you know that?

Sometimes when God points you in One Direction, it doesn't mean

that all you're. Supposed to do is just go that

way you're because see here's one of my great faults is how

many times he's called me into something but I forget along the

way to stop and pray and continually make it his.

Like, how many times have we thought, Oh my gosh, this is the

call. God finally gave it to me.

I got it from here, right? And so I love that, he says.

You go and then I'll show you what to.

Do I think so? Many times we just missed that.

So that's not the point of what I want to talk about, but I

can't skip over it. So next one, please.

Samuel did what the Lord commanded and came to Bethlehem.

The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said to

you, come peaceably. And he said peaceably.

I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.

Consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.

And he consecrated Jesus and his sons and invited them to the

sacrifice. When they came he looked at

Eliab and thought surely the Lord's anointed is on him.

But the Lord said, we'll just keep going, OK, but the Lord

said, do not be. Do not look on his appearance or

on the height of the stature, because I have rejected him.

For the Lord sees not as man sees but looks at the outward

appearance. But the Lord looks at the heart.

Then Jesse calls a Bennett AB and made him pass before Samuel.

He said, neither has the Lord chosen this one.

Then Jesse made Shema pass by. He said neither has the Lord

chosen this one. And Jesse made seven of his sons

pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, the

Lord has not chosen these. I always joke with my kids.

It's the Cinderella story before before Cinderella.

So then Samuel said to Jesse, are all your sons here?

And he said, there remains the youngest.

But behold, he is keeping the sheep.

And Samuel said to Jesse, send and get him, for we will not sit

down till he comes here. And he sent brought him in.

Now he was ready and had beautiful eyes, and was

handsome. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint

him, for this is he. Then Samuel took the horn of Oil

and anointed him in the midst of his brothers, and the spirit of

the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.

Now if you'll leave that slide up of everything.

I know some of that that story may be super familiar to some of

you, but there's one part that I've just not heard preached on

enough and it set me free. And it's this little part that

says then, Samuel said to Jesse, Right up here at Top Line, send

and bring him for. We will not sit down until he

comes here. Friends, can I tell you that I

have? Where I have messed up most in

life is that I think God needs me as a strategist.

Like I I need to tell you that the number of times that my

little strategic pea sized brain tries to come up with ways that

I can help the Lord accomplish what he's trying to do is off

the charts. Where that verse has freedom to

me is that if David knew because God could have shown him, if

David knew that the guy who was going to anoint the king would

be in the house that day, how many of us might have tried to

leave a resume on the table? Or maybe even sneakier, because

maybe we just do a little picture of ourselves on the

table so that the Samuel has to say.

Well, who's that? How many of us count on

headhunters or other people to lean in on?

This person will help me get the thing that the Lord has for me.

See, the problem is that this verse says none of that

happened. This verse is that he in that

moment says, Do you have another son?

He says, yeah, I've got one. He's out in the field at this

point in time. Jesse is the worst headhunter in

the history of headhunters. Didn't bring him up, didn't talk

about him. And then he says we will stand

and wait. Now again, anybody who's who's

studied this culture, standing and waiting, the seven older

brothers and dad standing and waiting.

And again, I, I, I just this year had the privilege of going

to Israel. Well, last year had a privilege

of going to Israel. And I don't know where the field

was, but it wasn't right outside the house.

I know that. And so they go out and they go

find David. In this moment, Can you imagine

the freedom, the freedom that we could live in if we knew that

God fights for us, That God remembers our address, that God

knows where we're at, that God doesn't need our help on this

strategy, that God has the role for you ahead of the time that

you've tried to plan for it? Can you imagine?

I mean, I'm just, I, I, I I just sit there and I think he, he

says, And then and then this little thing at the end where he

says in the spirit of the Lord, rushed upon David from that day

forward. The greater mystery to me of

God's faithfulness is that not only is he, does he do that.

He then says I'll be with you. As this this is so perplexing to

me. Because I I, in my own life, as

you heard my testimony, realized I was unqualified for every role

I was ever given and I was not in the right place at the right

time and I didn't have my resume out.

And yet God faithfully continually uses us unqualified.

I'll equipped people to do His work.

It's absolutely crazy. And so as I look at this, the

truth is God does not forget where you are now.

I do think it begs the question, what was David doing?

Because he wasn't in the right place at the right time.

So I the way I studied this, I see he was doing two things.

One is he was having a heart after the Lord, and two, he was

being obedient and everything put in front of him.

If I would, if I could encourage you if you said what posture

should I have. I I don't like this role.

I don't like this situation I'm in.

I'm looking for the Lord to Get Me Out.

I'm looking for what the Lord has next.

I want more purpose in my life. I want to be able to change the

world. I want to be able to make a

difference. I would say those two things

would be a very healthy posture, a heart for the Lord, obedient

in the things in front of you so that God will use each and every

one of those things. I combine that truth with a

second truth. If you don't mind pulling up

John 6. As we read John 6 together, I'm

going to do the same thing. Now this story, this story is

one that's going to be real easy for you to just glaze over

because you have heard it and I promise you have heard it.

The feeding of the 5000 John six one through 14.

After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of

Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberius, and a large crowd was

following him because they saw the signs that he was doing on

the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain,

and there he sat down with his disciples.

Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was a hand.

Lifting up his eyes then and seeing that a large crowd was

coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, Where are we to buy

bread so that these people may eat?

He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.

Philip answered him. 200 denarii worth of bread would not be

enough for each of them to get a little.

One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to

him. Well, there's a boy here who has

five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they for so many?

Jesus said, Have the people sit down now There was much grass in

the place, so the men sat down about 5000 in number.

Jesus then took the loaves, and then he and when he had given

thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated, so also

the fish, as much as they wanted.

And when they'd eaten their fill, he told their disciples,

gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be

lost. So they gathered them up.

So they gathered them up and filled 12 baskets with fragments

from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.

When the people saw the sign of what they had done, they said

this is indeed the prophet who has come into the world.

I know you know that story. I've heard it preached a lot.

You've probably heard it preached a lot, and there's so

many beautiful pieces of it. But I want to dissect 2 for

today first. That's what I feel like in state

government. I feel like a guy.

With two fish and five loaves amongst 1,000,000 vulnerable

problems sitting here today there are 23,000 with no, excuse

me, that's not true anymore. When I started my role, there

were 23,000 children in foster care in our state.

There were 4000 children waiting, what we call TPR,

terminated parental rights waiting to be adopted.

Right now, 4000, the numbers, as you look across domestic

violence and trafficking and juvenile justice and

corrections, as you look at the thing most upstream from most of

our issues, fatherlessness, the numbers aren't getting better,

right? And it is so easy to look around

and be like, what do we have that could do anything for this.

And so as I share with you a little bit about what's

happening in our state, I want you to know that my heart

posture has been, man, I think all we've got is 2 fish and five

loaves and a big God, That's it, right?

And so ultimately what we've done in the state was we started

asking. Questions.

The very first thing we did. Is that we caught the governor

and I don't think it's ever been done before.

The governor and the first lady and me sent a letter signed by

him and I to 40,000 faith leaders in our state and said we

don't even know how to say this because we don't know everything

you do. But thank you, thank you for how

you serve. And we said we would love for

you to give us one set of feedback.

Would you share which vulnerable populations your church is most

passionate about? And we sent that out.

And 5000 faith leaders sent back who they're most, most

passionate about, who they serve.

OK, now it wouldn't surprise you that the most served vulnerable

populations in our state are homelessness, hunger and the

elderly. I don't, I don't think that

would shock anyone. I think those are very natural

areas to serve. What should shock you?

Bring you a little bit of frustration, a little bit of

like why is that the 2nd to lowest group served in our state

out of 27 categories was adoption and if you went up only

four from that, so the sixth lowest.

Of our state was foster care. Now, doesn't that bring an

interesting question? Doesn't it make you start to

wonder how can Pastor Earl and a bunch of and the other 19,900

faith leaders that preach their face off, as I heard said over

over and over about James 127 and Matthew 25 and they tell you

this is our role to care for these people.

How is it possible that that 6% were caring for adoption and 11%

caring for foster care it? I'll tell you this, it begged 2

questions to me. One, what can I do to talk with

pastors about that? But more importantly is what can

we do as a state to change that? And by the way, what I mean by

that is I think there's only two potential outcomes for that

question. One is the pastors standing up

here don't really mean that, which I struggle with mightily.

More importantly is the state has made it so difficult to be

involved in foster care, which is already difficult that we've

just made it where churches aren't engaging.

And so I want to tell you a couple things that have happened

in your state. One, we're the only state in the

country right now that has what we call a, a pastors or faith

leaders red phone. We were talking about it.

Sean and I were talking about on the way down here.

The red phone is a phone where faith leaders can call and ask

any question they want of state government and we will get their

answer, their answer, their question answered from the

executive office of the governor.

Now let me why does that matter? Because you can't break silos

when you're inside silos. But what you can do is if you're

at the top, you can whack the top off the silos.

And So what we can do is we can take calls from faith leaders.

So when he's struggling with something that's outside

whatever and we can say what are you struggling with and I can

just call right over to the. Secretary of that agency and get

that question answered. And we're doing that.

We've done 309 calls. Yeah, it's great.

And if you wonder why, if you wonder why, it's because one

pastor said to me something that kind of, again, I couldn't see,

something you can't Unsee, he said.

Eric, it seems to me that the only time I ever hear from

government is when you need something from us.

I was like, oh, boy. And so we knew there was some

truth in that. And so we started this red phone

in the state of Florida. We serve 309 people.

Another thing is, right now, if you're an interested foster

parent, I want to tell you something.

Well, let's just start there because I really need to know.

I think every church in America should know this People in this

room. Right now that have a foster or

adopted child. Hold them high.

Hold them high. I know that means they're tired.

They've worked hard. Praise God.

Yeah. Thank you.

I. I've challenged every state.

I mean, excuse me, every pastor in our state to know who those

people are in their church. Someone one time said it to me,

so I can't take credit for this. But they said a foster or

adopted parent in our culture today is like a domestic

frontline missionary for the church.

It's the best way I've ever heard it.

And so just I want you to know, for those of you who raised

their hand and I, I, I, I, I know there's a lot of

circumstances out there. Thank you for being bold and

thank you. And so we found out that people

that were interested in fostering and adopting, if they

try to call our state, there were 53 different things they

could do, emails, calls, whatever.

And we found out that that system was broken.

So right now in the state of Florida, we've changed

everything. There is one call center that a

human being answers your phone call.

That human being has been trained somewhere between the

customer service of Disney and Chick-fil-A.

And they're going to, they're, you know what I'm talking about,

right. And so and they're going to walk

you through that process. And every single person

answering the phone is a current or past foster parent.

And so that they can walk you through it.

And let me tell you this, the system isn't easy, but as you.

Walk out the system of licensing and adoption.

Licensing for foster care or adoption, We're going to be with

you every step of the way and that person can be called upon

again if the time is needed. So we submit these little things

to the Lord. But the biggest thing that we

submitted to the Lord was we realized we don't have a

resource issue in our churches. You already said it.

God has a cattle on 1000 hills. We don't have a resource issue.

What we have in our in our in our churches is a connectivity

issue. Right.

And so we realized that, see because you could say to me,

Eric, we don't need government to do foster care, right.

OK. And you guys are already doing

awesome things in that space. I would say The thing is the

secretary of DCF who was in this building a couple days ago knows

the name and story of every one of the kids in foster care.

She knows how to what their needs are.

She knows what they not needs. Like you might know if you if

you foster them, but I just would contend to you that

government and church are stronger together.

And so. So I just would say one of the

things we did we're we're super, super proud of this.

It's going to get talked about here in a minute.

We launched something in our state called Care Portal.

Anyone heard of it? Couple.

Well, good. A lot of you will know it in a

second. Here's what's happening in our

state. We can give you like a little re

enactment. A caseworker or CPI is called to

a home and they walk into that home and they're going to make a

judgement in that case of whether that child is removed or

stays. That's happening all the time.

Do you know that in our state and I, I've learned that it's a

national average, 80% of the removals of children in our

state, 80% are neglect, not abuse.

Meaning that 20% we're going to remove them because we will keep

kids safe. That is one thing government

does. 80% are for neglect, meaning potentially preventable.

Do you know what one of the number one needs that children

are removed for is a lack of beds?

Now I say that, and when it first was said to me, I think

I'd give a bed. In a minute I could build a bed,

I could go buy a bed. I might have extra beds, cuz we

are, as the song said, living in the overflow.

But yet while that's happening, a bunch of us are gathered here

on Sunday and don't know what's happening.

You see that? That's the disconnect problem.

What Care Portal is, is so I think that Caseworker and CPI

the first time that there's not enough beds.

I think they buy a bed even though they don't make enough,

because who's wants to remove a kid?

Over a bed or a car seat. Which is another popular one.

And then the next time they don't have the money to do it so

they call uncle so and so and uncle so and so says sure, I'll

buy a bed. And then the next time after

that they they don't have anyone to call.

And yet we have 16.5 million people, 16.5 million people in

Florida that say they are faith-based, about 15,000,000

say they are Christian, 15,000,000 people.

And so this is an app that now exists on our state workers

phone And when they say with the with the family's permission,

hey, would you mind if I shared some of the needs you have, they

press a button, it goes to every faith and community organization

in the city of that of that family.

You're doing it. Anchor Faith is doing it.

It's going to get talked about more in a minute.

It will allow you to see real time needs.

Now here's one other thing I want to say because I just want

to shake it up a little bit for you.

It doesn't matter what side of Roe V Wade you land on, OK?

It does not matter for this statement.

There will be more children born with special needs and into low

income families than have been born in the last 50 years.

Now let me tell you what that looks like in state government,

in state government, that looks like down the road.

We will see more kids in foster care.

We will see more kids in in juvenile justice.

We'll see more kids in in in trafficking, but this is an

opportunity for the church to head that off at the pass.

We have been far. We've been praying for 50 years,

50 years to watch that law change and now is a time for the

church to be aware of how it is that they can best serve those

people. And so one of my favorite quotes

our our pastor up in Jacksonville says we can't be

merely pro birth. We must be pro-life.

Womb to Tomb. And what's going to happen with

this Care Portal app is we are going to have every need at

every stage of life coming into the people who sit here and have

a heart for those needs, you see how awesome it could be.

Let me paint you a picture real briefly in 1990.

In 1990. Michael Jordan's on the scene,

by the way. I know it's older people in

here, which is great. So none of you are fooled by

thinking LeBron or Kobe were better than Jordan.

I know this is AI can I can see this is a smart room.

And so Michael Jordan's on the scene and and Michael Jordan.

This night he's playing the Cavaliers and he goes off for 69

points. Some of you may remember that

performance. Jordan scored 69 points.

It's a overtime game, playoff implications.

It's it's just remarkable. At the same point in time,

there's another player on the. Court for the Chicago.

Bulls named Stacy King. Stacy King is a rookie and

during that game he takes four. He takes, he takes two shots, he

misses both, but he gets fouled on the second one.

And so he goes to the line and he misses the first free throw.

And I've always thought it's pretty funny because you got to

imagine Jordan, who's got 69 for the night, is looking at him

like, come on, man, like, I'm not.

I can't do it all myself. And yet he then goes back to the

line and he makes the second free throw.

He gets a free throw. And at the end of the game, the

media is frenzing because they're like, hey, we've got to

talk to Jordan. He just got 69 points tonight.

It's a historic game. They won in overtime.

Jordan slides right into the locker room and there's Stacy

King out on the court. And so the media comes over to

him and they're like Stacey, like, what did you think of

tonight? Like it was historic.

It was what we know. What's your perspective on it?

And he said, I will always remember tonight as the night

that Michael Jordan and I combined for 70 points.

True story, true story, guys. That's us partnering with God.

Like, like I I will tell you that bringing his bride into the

position that we bring our two fish and and five loaves is that

picture we except we bring less than one point and he brings a

lot more than 69. OK And so I I just need you to

know what we're presenting at government is a model where

we're just saying, God, here it is.

We're putting it back to your bride, back to your church.

We're doing things that I wake up every day and think about one

particular thing. What can I do that the next

administration can't undo? It's been real with you.

And so you know what? You know what they can't undo

connectivity between our vulnerable populations and our

churches can't undo it. But I want to make that story.

Can you go back to that the the, the Bible verse for a second?

I want to make that story. Get one back from that.

Sorry, should have coordinated that better.

I want to make this. I want to make this little more

personal. See right here in the middle

verse 9, there's a lad who has five barley loaves and two fish.

But what are those for so many people Do you know else I've

never heard preached on. What do you think happened to

the boy? I mean, I got to be careful

because it's not in Scripture, but I'm going to make a small

assumption to think that he gave it over and then sat down and

listened, sat down and ate, sat down and ate in abundance.

For that matter, I think, I think sometimes we have so

messed up that we think that 1, -, 1 in God's economy equals 0

fish, and loaves minus fish and loaves equal nothing.

And we approach God sometimes with that kind of sacrifice.

Like God, I don't know if you know how big this is of me, but

here's my sacrifice. And he's like, Are you kidding?

Are you kidding? I mean, think about this.

I think the boy sat down. I think he ate as much as he

wanted when we know he ate as much as he wanted, 'cause there

were 12 baskets left when it was done.

And I just would say to you, how many times?

Do we approach God with this idea that that man, we've done

some great thing for you? I'll tell you something else

that bothers me in the church. After years of being in the

church. The boy could have said, well,

yeah, I have two fish in five loaves, but I don't necessarily

theologically agree with that guy, and he doesn't quite look

like me. And you know what, Honestly,

just for the sake of my own comfort, I'd rather keep my fish

in five loaves. And yet, guys, I'm telling you,

we are using division as an excuse to do nothing.

We are using comfort as an excuse to do nothing.

We are using that we look different, talk different, sing

different as an excuse to do nothing.

And that has got to end. That has got to end.

Because when this little boy presents this little thing, what

happens? What happens?

He sees God's economy. He gives a little, but he ate

fully. I want you to remember this

because again, I I think we just, you got to get God's

economy is not the world's economy.

He eats fully. He had leftovers.

Yet he was part of the miracle. He was part of lives changed.

His name is written in Scripture.

Or his title. I guess he's in his name is the

lad is written in scripture. Guys, we have got to approach

God differently as the capital C church as his bride.

He gave something small and a tidal wave of blessings come

back. Do you understand how those two

passages freedom if #1 if he knows where we are and he never

forgets it and he's got the thing in store for us?

If you put that next to the fact that whatever we bring in

obedience and whatever we bring in sacrifice, none of it's

wasted. None of it's wasted.

I would pray that those two things and start to really sink

in. And that daily you may meditate

on that thought. Because the truth is, if we were

set that free, what would it matter?

We'd sacrifice everything. We'd buy the field 1,000,000 * /

A lot of you might wonder, should you trust him?

I think anytime someone says, trust me, that's a good

question. I told you I answer it for

government all the time. He is trustworthy, he is

faithful, he is good. He has a peace and joy and an

economy that are not comprehendible by us.

Some of us understand it, but we've only understood it because

we went through something, that he met us there.

And then you understand it. But can I tell you that I would

never leave this stage without saying that all of that only

works if you know him? I mean, I don't know how many of

you hear the words peace and joy and God's economy and and long

for him to know the next thing for you and long for him to

receive your sacrifice and and and and be part of the miracle,

be part of the blessings. We we said miracle at least 54

times. So we we are, we are believers

of miracles. So I don't know if you know him,

but I'm going to tell you this changed everything for me.

And I don't mean to know him as just savior.

We need to know him as Lord. We need to act like He's Lord.

We need to give him the reins because he's trustworthy,

faithful. He's good.

Some of you might need to hear me say today that He is for you,

just He is for you. That we sing it, we raise our

hands. But then we leave here, and I'm

not sure we act like it, because if if the Creator of all things,

the God with cattle on 1000 hills, is for us, what then

shall we fear? What shall cause us?

Anxiety or strife? What strategy do we need to

plan? What do we talk about, David?

Have a heart for the Lord, Be obedient with the things in

front of you. So do you know that we were

separated from God by sin? One of the things I've talked

about all these years in orphan and foster care ministry is

that. Orphans never forget that they

were orphans when they're adopted.

We as Christians forget we were orphans all the time, All the

time. So do you know that?

Do you know that you were separated?

Some of you are separated right now from a holy and just God

because of our sin. Do you know that from the

beginning of time that wasn't good enough for God, that he

would send his Son Jesus to come to this earth and live the life?

You couldn't die the death. You should let his blood cover

you. Cover the sins of your life.

Do you know it? For some of you, the question

isn't just do you know it? Do you live it?

Do you live like you're an orphan or were an orphan?

Do you look down on people, or do you see them as fellow

orphans in need of help, just like you needed help?

Do you know that the best news of the story is that he didn't

stay dead? The best news of the story is

that three days later, he rose. He conquered sin, He conquered

death. He put us in situations where he

is trustworthy and faithful. He is the almighty conqueror.

He is your creator. And the craziest part of all is

that he's willing to call us sons and daughters.

I know this is a church filled with people that love Jesus.

I know that. But I'm not going to let us

leave here without giving you the opportunity if you don't

know him as Lord and Savior to take that opportunity.

And I've been around a lot of denominations, and everybody

does it differently because there's no magic in the prayer.

There's no magic in the words. The truth is, you have to admit

that you are a Sinner in need of a savior.

You have to believe that Jesus was that Savior sent by God as

his only son on a rescue mission for you.

And then you have to confess him as Lord and Savior.

That's it. And I'm just telling you, I'm

honored to be able to talk about that.

I'm thrilled that that I that I can come from a government lens,

But none of that matters. I have an audience of one,

right? An audience of one that I know

is faithful and trustworthy and good.

And so I want to give you the opportunity.

If you've never had that moment, and I'd ask that you pray with

me. And some of you, by the way,

just need to get real about the fact that he needs to be Lord.

Let's pray. Thank you so much for listening

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